USA > History > 2010 > War > Iraq (I)

US Troops at Lowest Level

Since Iraq Invasion

February 16, 2010
Filed at 12:52 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The number of American soldiers in Iraq has dropped below 100,000 for the first time since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion in a clear signal the U.S. is wrapping up its nearly seven-year war to meet a deadline for leaving the country, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

The troop reduction comes at a critical time in Iraq as Washington questions the shaky democracy's ability to maintain security in the tense period surrounding March 7 parliamentary elections. Those concerns have only grown with a decision by a vetting committee to bar hundreds of candidates from running because of suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party.

The U.S. military plans on maintaining its current 98,000 boots on the ground in Iraq through the elections, 1st Lt. Elizabeth Feste, an army spokeswoman in Baghdad, told The Associated Press.

That's in line with what Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said would remain in place until at least 60 days after the election -- a period during which he believes Iraq's new government will be at its most vulnerable.

International observers fear that tension between the Shiite-dominated government and minority Sunnis may spill into the streets, re-igniting sectarian violence that could threaten the planned U.S. withdrawal.

President Barack Obama has ordered all but 50,000 troops to leave Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, with the remainder pulling out by the end of next year under an Iraqi-American security agreement.

''The withdrawal pace remains on target for about 50,000 at the end of August 2010,'' Feste said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is running for re-election on a campaign promise to make Iraq independent from U.S. military help. At a campaign rally Tuesday, he signaled that the U.S. cannot expect to use Iraq as a launching pad for military action in the Middle East.

He also cited a strong desire to improve relations with nations bordering Iraq that were seen as enemies during Saddam Hussein's regime. Al-Maliki's comments appeared to be directed at Iran, although he did not mention any countries by name.

''We also confirm to all our neighboring and friendly countries that our constitution stipulates to not let the Iraqi territories be a springboard to harm security and interests of any state,'' al-Maliki told supporters at a Baghdad hotel.

A senior U.S. military official said Tuesday he expected the number of forces in the country by 2011 to be whittled down to between 20,000 and 30,000, with those remaining forces out by the end of 2011.

Troop levels have fluctuated dramatically throughout the nearly seven-year war, shifts that generally reflected a change in U.S. strategy.

During the height of the invasion in May 2003, about 150,000 U.S. forces were in Iraq. But that number quickly dropped off by January 2004, with American troops moving from a combat to occupation role.

But by October 2005, the number climbed back up to 160,000 as the insurgency took hold in Iraq, according to the Pentagon. At the peak of the troop buildup in October 2007, there were roughly 170,000 troops on the ground as part of a counterinsurgency strategy known as the ''surge.''

Though the U.S. military has heavily touted the decline in overall violence and the success of Iraq's security as the reason for its withdrawal, it also has repeatedly warned about an increase in attacks before the election.

Commanders have said they do not expect violence to increase to levels that would require the return of U.S. troops onto the streets of Iraq's cities. Privately, though, many question whether Iraq can keep the lid on violence once the U.S. pulls out completely by the end of 2011.

A series of security lapses in recent months has allowed insurgents to repeatedly launch large-scale suicide bombing attacks against government sites as well as symbols of Western influence, such as hotels. Hundreds were killed in the attacks.

Security forces have been the target of near daily, smaller attacks by insurgents seeking to derail public confidence.

On Tuesday, a string of bombs targeted Iraqi army patrols and a police crime lab in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, an area where insurgents retain a foothold despite a sharp drop in violence across the rest of the country.

In the first attack, a car bomb exploded outside a side entrance of the police crime lab in Mosul, said Lt. Col. Salim Ibrahim, an area commander. It killed two people and wounded seven, including five police officers, he said.

Later, two roadside bombs struck separate Iraqi army patrols in eastern Mosul, killing two soldiers, an army official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. Five people, including three civilians, were wounded.

In recent weeks in and around Mosul, security checkpoints have been attacked in drive-by shootings and the motorcade of the provincial governor was attacked.

Gunmen also opened fire Tuesday on two Christian college students waiting at a bus stop in Mosul, killing one and wounding the other, a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

------

Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

    US Troops at Lowest Level Since Iraq Invasion, NYT, 16.2.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/02/16/world/AP-ML-Iraq.html

U.S. Forces Take On Major Role

at Ethnic Border in Iraq

January 27, 2010
The New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

MOSUL, Iraq — A string of checkpoints has appeared on the roads that spoke out from this volatile city, guarded by hundreds of American soldiers working with Arab and Kurdish troops. The joint operation along one of Iraq’s ethnic trouble spots began with a deliberate lack of fanfare, but it constitutes the most significant military mission by American forces since they largely retreated to bases outside Iraq’s cities in June.

More than two dozen checkpoints now punctuate a snaking line that traces — from Syria to Iran — the unofficial and very much disputed boundary between Iraq’s federal forces and those of the Kurdish regional government. At times these forces have operated virtually as opposing armies rather than as compatriots of a single nation, but at the checkpoints they now live and operate together for the first time since the war began.

Guarding checkpoints — a task the American military never relishes — invites attacks by insurgents, who remain particularly active in northern Iraq. And every night during a three-night stretch, rockets or mortars landed near three of the checkpoints in Diyala Province, though they caused no casualties, according to an American military spokesman and an Iraqi military official. “You stay static,” as First Sgt. Tony DelSardo, of the Army’s Third Infantry Division, put it on Saturday, “you’ll get hit.”

The operation began this month after labored negotiations with Iraq’s Arab and Kurdish leaders. The immediate goal is to bolster security ahead of bitterly contested elections in March along an ethnic patchwork of lands that has been devastated by catastrophic attacks.

The ultimate strategy is to defuse political tensions along a fault line that could easily rupture, sundering the country once American forces leave, or even before. The operation underscores the extent to which American military remains an arbiter of Iraq’s most intractable conflicts.

“What we’re doing is forcing the wound to close,” Lt. Col. Christopher L. Connelly, a battalion commander with the First Armored Division, said at one of the new checkpoints being erected on the highway that links Mosul to Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region.

With time running out before President Obama’s deadline for withdrawing combat troops in August, the mission has become the most urgent in Iraq.

The American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, proposed the checkpoints, along with joint patrols involving the three sides, after a series of incidents last year threatened open conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Its inception stalled for months amid deeply rooted suspicions between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani.

“What we have sought to do is separate the politics from the security piece, and of course, that’s very hard to do,” said Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the deputy commander in Iraq. “But we keep bringing it back to focusing on: O.K., where and how do we provide the best security to the Iraqi people? And how does that create the environment that will someday allow for political process to take place?”

This northern front, or “trigger line,” dates to the American invasion in 2003. As Saddam Hussein’s army collapsed, Kurdish forces called the pesh merga pushed from their three provinces in the north and occupied sections of territory in Nineveh, Kirkuk and Diyala Provinces that the Kurds claimed as theirs historically.

They have controlled the areas ever since, despite repeated calls by Iraq’s government and regional Sunni leaders for them to withdraw to the “green line” that established the internal Kurdish boundary before 2003.

As Iraq’s new security forces have grown more assertive in controlling territory on the southern side, the effect has been to square off two suspicious forces along a seam that has been exploited by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other insurgents for attacks, and by politicians for political points.

Last May, the pesh merga prevented the newly elected governor of Nineveh, a Sunni, from crossing the line to drive to Bashiqa, a town nominally under his authority. Although the facts of the incident were disputed, all agreed that violence was only narrowly averted.

Since then, a series of hair-trigger confrontations has raised tensions. So have bombings in villages of small ethnic minorities along the line populated by Assyrian Christians, Turkmens and Shabaks. Insurgents struck with such precision between the two opposing authorities that American and Iraqi officials suspect they were an effort to provoke an Arab-Kurd war.

Political leaders in Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh have condemned the new security operation, seeing the checkpoints as de facto recognition of Kurdish territorial claims. While many Kurds serve in the Iraqi Army, the pesh merga operate under the command of the Kurdish government; their presence, along with that of the Kurdish intelligence service, is viewed by many Iraqis as illegitimate.

“What guarantees are there that the pesh merga will ever withdraw?” Qusay Abbas, a member of Nineveh’s regional legislature, which has publicly opposed the operation, said at his home in a small village near one of the new checkpoints. Last week, he said, Kurdish soldiers detained and threatened him when tried to visit a mosque in a neighboring village.

American commanders have emphasized that the checkpoints are not meant to preclude negotiations between Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds over the final internal boundaries of the Kurdish region, though the hope is that cooperation on the ground will give momentum to a political — and peaceful — resolution of the underlying dispute.

The duration of the operations remains unclear. Ultimately the Americans hope to withdraw. For now, American platoons are hunkering down with their Iraqi and Kurdish counterparts in primitive camps beside the checkpoints, muddied by winter rains. Joint patrols have begun to ensure security in the immediate vicinity. More expansive patrols involving the three sides remain the subject of negotiations.

At one checkpoint on the road to Bashiqa, near where the governor was stopped, there is already a small sign of progress. Until last week, the Arabs and the Kurds maintained separate checkpoints, separated by a mile and a chasm of distrust.

Now platoons from both forces, along with the Americans, have consolidated into a single base in the middle, flying the Iraqi and Kurdish flags. They still maintain separate command posts, on opposite sides of the road, but the American platoon leader, Lt. Cody R. Schuette, is trying to find a tent or trailer to serve as a single one.

Meantime, at Forward Operating Base Marez, the American base on the edge of Mosul, the Americans have been conducting four-day courses for the new platoons. They began three weeks ago, forcing Iraqi and pesh merga troops together in courses, in temporary barracks and in the chow line.

Staff Col. Avdo Fathi, deputy commander of Iraq’s Third Army Division, said that training and operating together would “break a lot of the emotional obstacles” between the Arabs and Kurds. “I don’t want to talk about politics,” he said. “We are soldiers. The security forces — the army and the pesh merga — represent one country.”

John Leland contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Sam Dagher from Erbil.

    U.S. Forces Take On Major Role at Ethnic Border in Iraq, NYT, 27.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/27/world/middleeast/27mosul.html

Blast Hits Central Baghdad as Attacks Accelerate

January 26, 2010
The New York Times
Filed at 5:24 a.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide car bomber killed at least 18 and injured dozens more Tuesday in a strike against a police crime lab in central Baghdad, a day after several hotels were hit by suicide attacks, officials said.

Rescue crews are still combing through the rubble looking for casualties. Officials say the majority of those killed were likely police officers who worked in the forensic investigation office at Tahariyat Square in the central neighborhood of Karradah. At least 82 people were reported injured.

This week's bombings -- all against prominent and heavily fortified targets -- dealt yet another blow to the image of an Iraqi government struggling to answer for security lapses that have allowed bombers to carry out a number of massive attacks in the heart of the capital since August.

Police and hospital officials said the bomber in Tuesday's attack tried to drive a pickup truck through a checkpoint and blast walls protecting the forensic evidence office.

Among those confirmed killed were 12 police officers and six civilians who were visiting the office. Officials said more than half the wounded were police.

Shortly after the bombing, rescue teams in blue jumpsuits combed through the debris of the partially damaged three-story building as a crane removed some of the 10-foot, 7-ton concert blast walls toppled by the blast.

The office targeted in the attack mainly deals with data collected during criminal investigations, including fingerprints and other pieces of evidence. The office is located next to the Interior Ministry's major crimes office, which deals with terrorism cases.

Government offices have been frequent targets of major attacks in the capital since blasts struck the foreign and finance ministries in August, raising questions about the ability of Iraqi security forces to keep the country safe. While the criminal evidence offices have not been targeted by a major suicide bombing before, attackers have struck nearby.

The attack destroyed rooms on the ground floor of the building and damaged parts of the second floor, raising fears the number of casualties could grow, a police officer on the scene said.

The office is surrounded by low-rise buildings that contain shops, takeaway restaurants and offices that were also damaged.

Tuesday's attack comes one day after a series of bombings targeting hotels favored by Westerners.

The toll from those blasts continued to rise, with 41 people confirmed killed and up to 106 reported injured, police and health officials said Tuesday.

The bombings Monday targeted the Sheraton Ishtar Hotel, Babylon Hotel and Hamra Hotel, which are popular with Western journalists and foreign security contractors.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release details.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill issued a statement Tuesday strongly condemning the attacks against the hotels.

''The terrorists who committed these senseless crimes aim to sow fear among the Iraqi people,'' he said. ''We call upon all Iraqis to unite in combating all forms of violence and attempts at intimidation.''

Also on Tuesday, Ahmed Fadhil Hassan al-Majid, the nephew of the man known as Chemical Ali arrived in Baghdad to collect the body of Saddam Hussein's cousin and close deputy who was hanged Monday.

A grave was dug for Ali Hassan al-Majid near his hometown of Tikrit next to Saddam's two sons and grandson.

------

Associated Press Writers Hamid Ahmed and Sinan Salaheddin contributed to this report.

    Blast Hits Central Baghdad as Attacks Accelerate, NYT, 26.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/26/world/AP-ML-Iraq.html

Biden Says U.S. Will Appeal Blackwater Case Dismissal

January 24, 2010
The New York Times
By ANTHONY SHADID

BAGHDAD — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised Iraqi leaders on Saturday that the United States would appeal the dismissal of manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security contractors involved in a deadly shooting here that has inflamed anti-American tensions.

Mr. Biden, tasked by the Obama administration to oversee policy in Iraq, made the statement after a day of meetings with Iraqi leaders that dealt, in part, with a political crisis that has erupted over the March 7 parliamentary elections. American officials view the vote, a barometer of the durability of Iraq’s political system, as a crucial date in American plans to withdraw tens of thousands of combat troops from Iraq by the end of August.

The vice president expressed his “personal regret” for the Blackwater shooting in 2007, in which contractors guarding American diplomats opened fire in a crowded Baghdad traffic circle, killing 17 people, including women and children.

“A dismissal is not an acquittal,” he said after meeting President Jalal Talabani.

Investigators had concluded that the guards fired indiscriminately on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified attack. The guards contended that they had been ambushed by insurgents and fired in self-defense.

In December, in a decision that was a blow to the Justice Department and unleashed anger and disbelief in Iraq, a federal judge threw out the five guards’ indictment on manslaughter charges, citing misuse of their statements that violated their constitutional rights. The judge’s scathing and detailed ruling was expected to make any appeal difficult.

“This is great news,” Abdel-Amir Jihan, who was wounded in the shooting, said after hearing of Mr. Biden’s announcement. “The court was not fair to us. We felt great injustice when we heard the verdict. It was not right to drop the charges against them.”

Mr. Biden was scheduled to leave Saturday evening after a 24-hour visit that involved meetings with most of the pivotal players in the election crisis. That dispute erupted this month after a government commission barred more than 500 candidates, accusing them of supporting Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. While some leaders have insisted that the disqualifications adhered to Iraqi law, many Sunni Muslims have seen them as score-settling by religious Shiite parties who suffered under Baath Party rule, and American officials have worried that the move could impair the vote’s legitimacy.

American officials have warned Iraqi leaders to avoid a process that, in the words of Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Antony J. Blinken, “lacks transparency and fairness and credibility.” But as expected, there was no breakthrough in the meetings, and Mr. Biden, who spent the day shuttling between meetings, stressed that the United States would not impose a solution.

“I want to make clear I am not here to resolve that issue,” he said. “I am confident that Iraq’s leaders are seized with this issue and are working for a final, just solution.”

Before his meeting with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, though, Mr. Biden alluded to how frequently American mediation — especially his own, over the course of three trips here since he became vice president — has been necessary. He jokingly told Mr. Maliki: “I’ve come to apply for citizenship. I’ve been here enough.”

The crisis has proved intractable in part because of its very nature: a legal process with obvious and sweeping political effects, seized on by Iraqi leaders with competing interests.

In Mr. Biden’s meeting with Mr. Maliki, officials said, the prime minister insisted that the disqualifications were simply a legal issue. But Mr. Maliki’s critics have accused him of politicizing the issue as much as anyone, and in a speech on Friday, he took an especially hard line, saying that the barring of candidates in itself did not go far enough.

And while many of the most senior Iraqi officials have warned the United States against interference in Iraq’s affairs, others — especially many of the Sunni politicians who were barred from running — have sought American intervention.

American officials have said that, despite the current political crisis, they do not foresee any delay in this August’s withdrawal of the main body of American combat troops.

A notable step in that process happened Saturday when the Marine Corps handed over security duties in Anbar Province, once a cradle of the insurgency, to United States Army soldiers. The move formally ended the seven-year-long Marine presence in Iraq, in effect signaling the end of heavy combat operations.

As many as 25,000 Marines were once in the country, and the remaining few thousand are expected to leave within weeks.

    Biden Says U.S. Will Appeal Blackwater Case Dismissal, NYT, 24.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html

Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' Gets 4th Death Sentence

January 17, 2010
Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin ''Chemical Ali'' was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on Sunday for ordering the gassing of Kurds in 1988, killing more than 5,000 in an air raid thought to be the worst single attack of its kind on civilians.

It was Ali Hassan al-Majid's fourth death sentence for crimes against humanity in Iraq. The previous three have not been carried out, in part because survivors of the poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja wanted to have their case against al-Majid heard.

Relatives of Halabja victims cheered in the courtroom when chief judge Aboud Mustafa handed down the guilty verdict against al-Majid, one of the chief architects of Saddam's repression.

Nazik Tawfiq, a 45-year-old Kurdish woman who said she lost six relatives in the attack, fell to her knees upon hearing the verdict to offer a prayer of thanks.

''I am so happy today,'' she said. ''Now the souls of our victims will rest in peace.''

In Halabja after the verdict, residents cheered and songs played from loudspeakers at a monument commemorating victims of the attack. Some in town visited the cemetery to remember loved ones who perished in the gassing. The jubilation demonstrated again the deep-rooted hatred many Iraqis feel toward the former regime.

Another senior figure in Saddam's regime, former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, suffered a severe stroke over the weekend and cannot speak, his son said Sunday. Aziz was for years the chief diplomat of Saddam's regime. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for his involvement in the forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq and the deaths of Baghdad merchants in the 1990s.

Aziz was taken last Thursday to a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad for examination, said a U.S. military official, Lt. Col. Pat Johnson. His condition is improving, and he is being closely monitored, Johnson said, declining to say more due to privacy concerns.

Al-Majid earned his nickname because of his willingness to use poison gas against the Kurds.

The 1988 killings remain a source of deep pain, particularly for Iraq's Kurds. Many in Halabja still suffer physically from the effects of the nerve and mustard gas that were unleashed on the village at the end of the eight-year, Iran-Iraq War.

Survivors feel a sense of injustice that Saddam was hanged for the killings of Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt on the late dictator in a town north of Baghdad, but did not live to face justice for the Halabja attack. He was executed in December 2006.

The chemical air raid is thought to be the worst single attack of its kind against civilians. Graphic pictures taken after the attack showed bodies of men, women, children and animals lying in the streets where they inhaled the gas. Survivors were covered by burns.

The attack has left many of the survivors with long-term medical problems such as permanent blindness, skin burns, respiratory and digestive problems and cancer, said Dr. Farman Othman, a doctor in Suleimaniyah who has treated a number of patients.

The attacks were part of repeated attempts by Saddam's government to suppress the Kurds, who had long campaigned for autonomy from mainly Arab Iraq and staged a guerrilla war against Saddam's military. The Kurds had also allied with the Iranians during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The Kurds have since the end of the Gulf War over Kuwait in 1991 enjoyed a large degree of autonomy under the protection of U.S.-led Western powers which enforced a no-fly zone over the Kurdish north of Iraq.

The court also convicted and sentenced other former officials to jail terms on Sunday for their roles in the Halabja attack.

Former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie faces 15 years in prison, as does Iraq's former director of military intelligence, Sabir Azizi al-Douri. Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri, a former top military intelligence official, was sentenced to 10 years.

Evidence against the defendants included eyewitness accounts, official documents and films seized after the fall of Saddam's regime, and military correspondence among commanders.

Al-Majid faces three previous death sentences for atrocities committed during Saddam's rule -- particularly government campaigns against Shiites and Kurds in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He was previously sentenced to hang for his role in a brutal crackdown against the Kurds in the late 1980s, known as the Anfal campaign, that killed hundreds of thousands.

The court later issued separate death sentences for his role in the 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising and for a 1999 crackdown that sought to quell a Shiite backlash to the slaying in the same year of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric who opposed the regime.

The earlier death sentences against al-Majid have not been carried out in part because of a desire by victims of the gas attacks to see him tried for one of the former regime's most vicious attacks.

Another obstacle was a political dispute involving al-Taie, the former defense minister, who was also sentenced to death along with Chemical Ali in the Anfal trial.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, have both refused to sign the execution order against al-Taie, who signed the cease-fire with U.S.-led forces that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Taie is a Sunni Arab viewed by many as a respected career soldier who was forced to follow Saddam's orders in the purges against Kurds.

The three-member presidency council must approve all death sentences, and the failure to reach agreement on al-Taie's case has delayed the execution of al-Majid as well.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has sought to push the three-man Presidential Council to approve the death sentences pending against al-Majid and al-Taie.

Al-Taie surrendered to U.S. forces in September 2003 after weeks of negotiations. His defense has claimed the Americans had promised him ''protection and good treatment.''

Many Sunni Arabs saw his sentence as evidence that Shiite and Kurdish officials are persecuting the once-dominant Sunni minority by using their influence over the judiciary.

Mohammed Saeed Ali, a Kurdish city official in Halabja, said al-Majid ought to be hanged in Halabja to bring closure to victims' relatives.

''Chemical Ali massacred us and we want to see him getting what he deserves,'' he said.

------

Associated Press writer Yahya Barzanji in Halabja, Iraq, contributed to this report.

    Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' Gets 4th Death Sentence, NYT, 17.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/17/world/AP-ML-Iraq.html

Iraq Region Hit by Another Attack

January 14, 2010
The New York Times
By MOHAMMED HUSSEIN and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

BAGHDAD — A water truck loaded with explosives was detonated in a suicide attack inside a local government compound in western Iraq on Wednesday, killing seven people, the authorities said.

The blast, in the Anbar Province town of Saqlawiya, about 40 miles west of Baghdad, continues a recent uptick in violence in the province. Six other people, including four police officers and a child, were wounded during the attack.

The United States military, as part of its scheduled force reduction in Iraq, is planning to withdraw more than half of its 7,500 remaining troops from Anbar by the end of the month.

Anbar had once been at the center of the Sunni insurgency against American troops, but it had turned largely peaceful until a series of attacks during the past few months.

Many of the recent attacks, including Wednesday’s bombing, bear the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni insurgent group.

Other killings have been tied to political conflicts prior to the scheduled March 7 parliamentary elections.

Among the recent attacks, twin suicide bombings in Ramadi, the provincial capital, killed 24 people and wounded at least 58 others, including Gov. Qasim Abed al-Fahadawi, on Dec. 30.

Last week, a series of four explosions killed at least seven people in the Anbar town of Hit, about 85 miles west of Baghdad. That attack wounded Lt. Col. Walid Slaiman, chief of the town’s counterterrorism unit, and killed several of his relatives.

Wednesday’s bombing occurred about 7:30 a.m. when a man drove a water tanker into a guarded compound where the local municipal council and police station have offices. The police said most people had not yet arrived at work there.

The tanker was allowed to enter the compound because it was believed to be part of ongoing rebuilding efforts there, the authorities said.

Of the seven victims, two were police officers and five were laborers, officials said.

The explosion could be heard as far away as Falluja, about 12 miles to the south.

“We believe this was the work of sleeper cells that belong to Al Qaeda who are trying to confuse people because the elections are approaching,” said Salam Ajami, a member of the local council in Falluja.

Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Anbar Province.

    Iraq Region Hit by Another Attack, NYT, 14.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/middleeast/14iraq.html

Iraqi Accused in Deaths of 5 G.I.’s Released

January 6, 2010
The New York Times
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and JOHN LELAND

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi accused of being behind the 2007 slayings of five American soldiers has been released by the Iraqi government, according to an Iraqi official.

“According to my personal information, he was released two days ago,” said the spokesman, Alaa al-Taei, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior.

The suspect, Qais al-Khazali, is suspected of being a leader of a militia called Asa’ib al-Haq, or the League of the Righteous. He had been transferred from American military custody to Iraqi hands last week.

That transfer came hours before the militia released a British computer expert, Peter Moore, who had been held by the group for two and a half years.

The American military and the Iraqi government have denied that the transfer was part of a deal for Mr. Moore’s release. The remains of three men kidnapped with him have been recovered; the Iraqi authorities said they were near a deal for clarity on the fate of the last man.

Calls to the Iraqi government Tuesday night to confirm the release of Mr. Khazali were not immediately returned.

News of the release came the same day an American Congressional delegation visited Iraq, including Senator John McCain, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman. They met with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders and were briefed by Gen. Ray Odierno.

Mr. McCain took the opportunity to criticize the recent ruling in the United States dismissing charges against Blackwater security guards who opened fire on unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007 in a fusillade that left 17 dead. Iraqis were outraged by the ruling.

“We regret the decision,” Mr. McCain said. “However we do respect the rule of law. We hope and believe that the ruling will be appealed.”

He and Mr. Lieberman said that despite its troubles, Iraq could become a democratic example for other countries in the Middle East.

Iraq, said Mr. McCain, was “emerging as a country with a messy but effective democracy” that “over time will be a beacon, a model to other nations in the region and throughout the world.”

Also on Tuesday, The Iraqi government formally approved four oil field development contracts with international companies on Tuesday, advancing its plan to drastically increase oil production to pay for security, rebuilding and other costs.

Three other deals with foreign oil companies that have won preliminary approval are expected to be cleared within the next few weeks, said a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh.

During the past year and a half, Iraq has signed development contracts with foreign companies for 11 of its fields. It seeks to increase oil output in six years to as much as 12 million barrels a day from its current rate of about 2.4 million barrels a day.

On Tuesday, the Oil Ministry announced that the country had earned $41 billion in oil revenues in 2009, down from about $61 billion last year, a decline attributable mainly to lower international oil prices.

The largest of the four contracts ratified by the government on Tuesday was Majnoon field in Basra Province in southern Iraq, which has an estimated 12.6 billion barrels of oil.

The field will be developed by a partnership of Royal Dutch Shell and Petronas, the Malaysian state-owned giant.

The companies, which paid $150 million for the right to develop the field, have agreed to increase production at Majnoon from 45,000 barrels a day to 700,000 barrels a day, and will receive $1.39 per barrel. The government also approved a contract with a consortium of Petronas and Japex, a Japanese company, to develop another field in southern Iraq, Garaf. The companies paid Iraq $100 million to win the rights to the field, which contains about 900 million barrels of oil. The firms will get $149 per barrel.

The other two fields that won government approval on Tuesday are Qaiyarah and Najmah in Ninevah Province in northwest Iraq. They are to be developed by Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil company.

Qaiyarah possesses about 800 million barrels of oil and Najmah has about 900 million barrels of oil. Sonangol paid Iraq $100 million each to develop the fields. The company will get $6 per barrel for oil produced at Najmah and $5 per barrel at Qaiyarah.//CAN YOU SAY WHY SO MUCH MORE AT THESE FIELDS?//

The final contracts between the government and the companies for the four fields are expected to be signed during the next few weeks, officials said.

Sa’ad al-Izzi, Mohammed Hussein and Omar al-Jawoshy contributed reporting.

    Iraqi Accused in Deaths of 5 G.I.’s Released, NYT, 6.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/world/middleeast/06iraq.html

Iraqis Angered as Blackwater Charges Are Dropped

January 2, 2010
The New York Times
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

BAGHDAD — Iraqis on Friday reacted with disbelief, anger and bitter resignation to news that criminal charges in the United States had been dismissed against Blackwater Worldwide security guards who opened fire on unarmed Iraqi civilians in 2007.

Though the shooting, which took place on Sept. 16, 2007, in a crowded central Baghdad traffic circle, is regarded here as a signal event of the war, many victims had not been aware of the decision of a Federal District Court judge in Washington because the ruling was made public in Baghdad a few hours after the start of the new year.

The attack, at Nisour Square, left 17 Iraqis dead and 27 wounded. Many of the victims were riding inside cars or buses at a busy traffic circle when a Blackwater convoy escorting American diplomats rolled through and began firing machine guns, grenade launchers and a sniper rifle.

The Blackwater guards said they believed they had come under small-arms fire from insurgents. But investigators concluded that the guards had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault.

The incident calcified anti-American sentiment in Iraq and elsewhere, raised Iraqi concerns about the extent of its sovereignty because Blackwater guards had immunity from local prosecutors and reopened a debate about American dependence on private security contractors in the Iraq war.

Many Iraqis also viewed the prosecution of the guards as a test case of American democratic principles, which have not been wholeheartedly embraced, and in particular of the fairness of the American judicial system.

On Thursday, Judge Ricardo M. Urbina threw out manslaughter and weapons charges against five Blackwater guards because he said prosecutors had violated the men’s rights by building the case based on sworn statements that had been given by the guards under the promise of immunity.

Prosecutors have not said whether they will appeal the decision.

In Baghdad on Friday, some victims and their families expressed grave disappointment at the ruling and said they did not understand how charges could have been dropped despite what they regarded as overwhelming evidence. Some said they were shot as they tried to flee.

“What are we — not human?” asked Abdul Wahab Adul Khader, 34, a bank employee who was shot in the hand while driving his car through the traffic circle. “Why do they have the right to kill people? Is our blood so cheap? For America, the land of justice and law, what does it mean to let criminals go? They were chasing me and shooting at me. They were determined to kill me.”

Sami Hawas, 45, a taxi driver, was shot in the back during the episode and is paralyzed.

“I can’t even think of words to say,” Mr. Hawas said after being told about the court ruling. “We have been waiting for so long. I still have bullets in my back. I cannot even sit like an ordinary human being.”

Ali Khalaf, a traffic police officer who was on duty in Nisour Square at the time and aided some of the victims, was furious.

“There has been a cover-up since the very start,” he said. “What can we say? They killed people. They probably gave a bribe to get released. This is their own American court system.”

Some of the victims had been burned so badly, he said, that he and others had to use shovels to scoop their remains out of their vehicles.

“I ask you, if this had happened to Americans, what would be the result? But these were Iraqis,” he said.

Sahib Nassir’s 26-year-old son, Mehdi, a taxi driver, was shot in the back and killed. He said he was stunned to hear that the charges had been dismissed because he had been preparing to testify at a trial that was scheduled to start in February.

“How could they release them?” he asked. “There is evidence. There are witnesses.”

Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said in a statement that the government “regrets” the federal court decision.

“Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi officials confirmed without a doubt that Blackwater guards committed murder and violated laws by using weapons without the presence of any threat,” Mr. Dabbagh said.

At a news conference Friday, Gen. Ray Odierno, the American commander in Iraq, called the ruling “a lesson in the rule of law.”

“Of course people are not going to like it because they believe these individuals conducted some violence and should be punished for it,” he said. “But the bottom line is, using the rule of law, the evidence obviously was not there, or was collected illegally or whatever the reason is, and so it can’t be used. That’s always a problem. But it’s a lesson in the rule of law. We’re a country of the rule of law — Iraq’s a country that’s abiding by the rule of law.”

He added: “I worry about it because clearly there were innocent people killed during this attack. And that’s concerning everyone that innocent people were killed. And so it’s heart-wrenching when these people are killed.”

Blackwater, now called Xe Services, has not faced criminal charges related to the shootings, but victims and their families have filed a civil lawsuit against the company and Erik Prince, its founder.

In addition to the five Blackwater employees who had faced trial, a sixth, Jeremy P. Ridgeway, pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

The company continued to provide security for the United States Embassy in Baghdad until last spring. But in March, the Iraqi government said it would not grant Blackwater an operating license. Afterward, the embassy contract was awarded to a rival security firm.

Also Friday, the United States military in Iraq said the month of December had been the first month since the United States-led invasion in which an American service member had not been killed in combat. Three United States troops died during the month in noncombat-related incidents, the military said.

Reporting was contributed by Duraid Adnan, Sa’ad al-Izzi, Mohammed al-Obaidi, John Leland and Riyadh Mohammed.

    Iraqis Angered as Blackwater Charges Are Dropped, NYT, 2.1.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/02/us/02blackwater.html